Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.— Edgar Allan Poe.LILY Camellia was fine.Or at least, that was what Darius told me.His voice carried the kind of certainty I wanted to believe, but beneath it, a tremor lingered, too sharp for me to ignore.Lilah kicked rocks beside me, her shoulders slumped as we walked back to my house from her school.Darius claimed Camellia had gone on some small retreat. He even showed me texts and voice messages.But I hadn’t been a fool yesterday—and I wasn’t about to be one today.I was smart enough not to ask too many questions, but not dumb enough to leave Lilah with him.Until Camellia “came back” from her retreat, Lilah was going to be under my care.Rowan still thought I was overreacting when I told him about Camellia.Well, fuck him. I’d always been right,even back when I gambled away my last bills in backroom card games with men who’d kill you over a bad hand.I knew something was up.“Why so sad, Lilah?” I signed to her.“
"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."— Stephen King.CAMELLIA I couldn’t breathe. Pain clamped my chest, crushing me down.My hands clawed for my stomach to protect it but something heavy pinned me down.A hot, sticky slick ran down my forehead; the copper smell hitting before my eyes caught up.It wasn’t dark, but my vision swam, struggling to adjust—And then my heart stopped.Eryndor loomed above me, his dead eyes locked on mine, unblinking.A jagged spear jutted clean through his chest, splitting flesh and bone, and every drip of blood seeped from the wound,pattering against my skin before tracing down my temples.His chest twitched as if refusing to accept death, but the blood kept coming.I tried to scream, but even my throat burned too raw.We’d been walking toward Darius’s pack when the voices came.Then—pain, sharp and sudden—something pierced my neck.After that… Everything was a blur.“Ugh, finally,” a voice groaned,
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.— Emily Brontë.KYLE I’d stopped fucking Viren in the pack house the moment selene caught me.Her eyes didn’t need words—she had my secret, and she knew exactly how to use it. Weeks as her lapdog had left me humiliated, enraged, and painfully aware of just how trapped I was.I pressed my hands against Viren’s hips, feeling him shiver beneath me.His pulse was fast, and it made my cock twitch, hungry for him.He didn’t contact me for weeks after our argument about me hiding him away from the rest of the world, and I decided then to give him his space.Nobody would want to be hidden, and he deserved better.But the mate bond didn’t care about the reason.In the dead of night, I felt him—restless, like his soul was tugging on mine, demanding I stop pretending we could live without each other.The mate bond won. It always would.Viren was important to me,more than pride, more than fear and I knew I couldn’t keep hiding him anym
The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.— Ernest Hemingway.CAMELLIA Accepting that I was pregnant suddenly made every symptom impossible to ignore.I clutched the toilet seat, my knuckles white, as I heaved my dinner into it.Glancing at the bathroom window, I saw it was still dark outside. I’d been awake for hours,vomiting every hour or so, each wave leaving me weaker than the last.A small smile crept onto my face at the thought of how Lily would react if I told her I was having a baby, or how Lilah would grin at the idea of finally having someone younger than her around.But the smile vanished as my thoughts drifted back to Lucien. Would he be glad I was carrying his child… or repulsed by me?I missed him so much it was almost shameful.I missed Lily and Lilah too, but I had to think of what to do without making any harsh moves.It wasn’t just me anymore,there was a life inside me now, fragile and growing, and I would protect it with ever
Every man contains two wolves. One is evil and one is good. The one that wins is the one you feed.—Cherokee.M.Wolves, witches, vampires… ..such pitiful creatures.They scurry and howl, cast spells, bite necks… and yet? None of them ever even tremble under my shadow.Nobody… nobody ever measures up to me. And oh, how delicious that truth tasted.I watched the alphas, the so-called rulers, swagger up to my pack member,my little masterpiece.They tore into him, shredding his flesh,and cracking his bones, his screams painting the air like some sick, twisted symphony.But he wouldn’t give in or answer their questions.Not because of courage, not because of loyalty… but because he had a family.Innocent, fragile little lives, all dangling on a thread I could snap with a mere flick of my fingers.And oh, he knew it.That knowledge—his fear for them—was exactly what kept him silent, kept him dancing on the knife’s edge… for me.Through it all, through the artistry of his agony, he dared
Steady is the crown. Caged is the hunger.— Anonymous.LUCIEN I hadn’t had a moment to myself in days, and finally, I let my hands work the tension from my body.But even here, alone in the dark, I wasn’t really alone. Camellia was everywhere: laugh, stubborn eyes—everything clawing at my chest until it ached and my cock throbbed with the same relentless hunger.And gods, the pack. The endless weight of it. The snarling tempers, the shadow of Raven Howl poisoning every corner.I carried it on my shoulders every hour of the day, and it pressed down until my bones ached.This wasn’t just lust. It was release.I leaned back in the chair, undoing my pants with shaking hands. My cock sprang free, heavy and flushed, the need in me almost painful. I wrapped my palm around it and groaned.My strokes started slow, dragging from root to tip, my veins throbbing against my fist.I closed my eyes and saw her mouth—parting as I slid between her lips. My hand tightened, moving faster, chasing the